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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
First painted in 1961, the coffee cup is the subject of one of Roy Lichtenstein's earliest mature sculptures. Throughout Lichtenstein's career, he not only mined popular culture for subject matter, but also art history. Ceramic Sculpture #7 draws on Lichtenstein's investigation of Pablo Picasso, one of many works related to the Spanish master. Picasso's Glass of Absinthe, 1914 provided the artist with an direct art historical precedent, which he updated as a Pop icon.
From the very beginning of his career, Lichtenstein appropriated other artists' famous subjects. The absinthe in Picasso's still-life sculpture contained an hallucinogenic potion that fueled the avant-garde culture of fin de siecle Paris-it has been replaced by the jet-fuel efficiency of caffeine in the idealized and streamlined society of American media of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly, both works share a graphic quality of dots and hash marks, one to represent the Cubist revolution and the other to emulate printing techniques.
Revisiting, reinterpreting, and rethinking define Roy Lichtenstein's sculpture and art. He explores both his own production, the artist who preceded him and his peers to create works that transform how we see the world and interpret our culture. His determination to continually look anew at his own work led to one of the most fruitful bodies of sculpture and of the 20th Century. Ceramic # 7 is testimony to his achievement.
First painted in 1961, the coffee cup is the subject of one of Roy Lichtenstein's earliest mature sculptures. Throughout Lichtenstein's career, he not only mined popular culture for subject matter, but also art history. Ceramic Sculpture #7 draws on Lichtenstein's investigation of Pablo Picasso, one of many works related to the Spanish master. Picasso's Glass of Absinthe, 1914 provided the artist with an direct art historical precedent, which he updated as a Pop icon.
From the very beginning of his career, Lichtenstein appropriated other artists' famous subjects. The absinthe in Picasso's still-life sculpture contained an hallucinogenic potion that fueled the avant-garde culture of fin de siecle Paris-it has been replaced by the jet-fuel efficiency of caffeine in the idealized and streamlined society of American media of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly, both works share a graphic quality of dots and hash marks, one to represent the Cubist revolution and the other to emulate printing techniques.
Revisiting, reinterpreting, and rethinking define Roy Lichtenstein's sculpture and art. He explores both his own production, the artist who preceded him and his peers to create works that transform how we see the world and interpret our culture. His determination to continually look anew at his own work led to one of the most fruitful bodies of sculpture and of the 20th Century. Ceramic # 7 is testimony to his achievement.